The chemistry that regulates a nerve cell

Inside a nerve cell, proteins are switched on and off by small chemical changes. One of them is phosphorylation: enzymes called protein kinases attach a phosphate group to a protein and change how it behaves. Eric J. Nestler and Paul Greengard wrote this book to explain how that process governs what nerve cells do, at a time when the study of the brain was turning to molecules.

They work through the protein kinases, the proteins they act on and the signalling pathways that connect them, with illustrations, micrographs and chemical diagrams. In 2000 Greengard shared a Nobel Prize, in Physiology or Medicine, for research on how signals are passed within neurons, so the book also shows that research as it stood midway, when biochemistry was beginning to explain how the brain works.

It was published by John Wiley & Sons for the Neurosciences Institute; this is the third printing, dated 1984, in grey cloth without a jacket. It came from a library, which stamped it withdrawn, and the removed labels have left traces of adhesive; the text and illustrations are present.